ity of
title under which the subject of this lecture has been announced: for
indeed I am not going to talk of kings, known as regnant, nor of
treasuries, understood to contain wealth; but of quite another order of
royalty, and another material of riches, than those usually
acknowledged. I had even intended to ask your attention for a little
while on trust, and (as sometimes one contrives, in taking a friend to
see a favorite piece of scenery) to hide what I wanted most to show,
with such imperfect cunning as I might, until we unexpectedly reached
the best point of view by winding paths. But--and as also I have heard
it said, by men practiced in public address, that hearers are never so
much fatigued as by the endeavour to follow a speaker who gives them no
clue to his purposes,--I will take the slight mask off at once, and
tell you plainly that I want to speak to you about the treasures hidden
in books; and about the way we find them, and the way we lose them. A
grave subject, you will say; and a wide one! Yes; so wide that I shall
make no effort to touch the compass of it. I will try only to bring
before you a few simple thoughts about reading, which press themselves
upon me every day more deeply, as I watch the course of the public mind
with respect to our daily enlarging means of education; and the
answeringly wider spreading on the levels, of the irrigation of
literature.

2. It happens that I have practically some connection with schools for
different classes of youth; and I receive many letters from parents
respecting the education of their children. In the mass of these
letters I am always struck by the precedence which the idea of a
"position in life" takes above all other thoughts in the parents'--more
especially in the mothers'--minds. "The education befitting such and
such a _station in life_"--this is the phrase, this the object, always.
They never seek, as far as I can make out, an education good in itself;
even the conception of abstract rightness in training rarely seems
reached by the writers. But, an education "which shall keep a good
coat on my son's back;--which shall enable him to ring with confidence
the visitors' bell at doubled-belled doors; which shall result
ultimately in establishment of a doubled-belled door to his own
house;--in a word, which shall lead to 'advancement in life';--_this_
we pray for on bent knees--and this is _all_ we pray for." It never
seems to occur to the parent